John Lothrop Motley

John Lothrop Motley (April 15, 1814 – May 29, 1877) was an American author, best known for his two popular histories The Rise of the Dutch Republic and The United Netherlands. He was also a diplomat, who helped to prevent European intervention on the side of the Confederates in the American Civil War.

Biography

J.L. Motley was born on April 15, 1814 in Dorchester, Massachusetts.[1] His grandfather, Thomas Motley, a jail-keeper (a public position) and innkeeper in Portland, Maine, had been a Freemason and radical sympathizer with the French Revolution.[1] (An article in The Eastern Herald, the only newspaper then published in Maine, announced that "Citizen Motley" would host a celebration on Washington's Birthday 1793 "rejoicing at the emancipation of our sister republic, France."[1] Motley's father Thomas and uncle Edward served mercantile apprenticeships in Portland: Thomas with James Deering on Long Wharf and Edward with Hugh McClelland, whose counting house was on Fore Street. Both concerns centered on Portland's thriving on trade from Liverpool, averaging one ship to arrive or sail every week of the year.[1] Return cargoes usually consisted of salt, crates of crockery and glassware, window glass, iron, hardware, and dry goods. These goods were then shipped to Boston on the regular sailing packets, to be sold on commission.[1]

In 1802, Thomas Motley moved to Boston and established a commission house on India Wharf, taking his brother Edward with him as clerk. This became one of the leading commission houses in Boston, under the eventual name of "Thomas and Edward Motley".[1] The senior partner, Thomas, married Anna Lothrop, daughter of the Rev. John Lathrop, product of an old and distinguished line of Massachusetts clergymen. Like other successful Boston merchants of the period, Thomas Motley devoted a great part of his wealth to civic purposes and the education of his children. The brilliant accomplishments of his second son, J.L. Motley, are evidence of the care both the father and mother—known both for her learning and what Motley's boyhood friend Wendell Phillips called her "regal beauty"—bestowed on the boy's intellectual development.

In 1837 he married Mary Benjamin (died 1874), a sister of Park Benjamin Sr., and in 1839 he published anonymously a novel titled Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial, about life in a German university, based on his own experiences. It was poorly received, but has later been recognized for featuring a valuable portrayal of Bismarck, "thinly disguised as Otto von Rabenmarck", as a young student.[3]

In 1841, Motley entered the U.S. diplomatic service as secretary of legation in St. Petersburg, Russia, but resigned his post within three months, because, according to a letter he wrote to his mother, of the harsh climate, the expenses living there, and his reserved habits. Returning to America, he soon entered definitely upon a literary career. Besides contributing various historical and critical essays to the North American Review, such as "Life and Character of Peter the Great" (1845), and a remarkable essay on the "Polity of the Puritans", he published in 1849, again anonymously, a second novel, titled Merry Mount, a Romance of the Massachusetts Colony, based again on the odd history of Thomas Morton and Merrymount. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1856.[4]

Dutch history

Motley, circa 1855–1865

In 1846, Motley had begun to plan a history of the Netherlands, in particular the period of the United Provinces, and he had already done a large amount of work on this subject when, finding the materials at his disposal in the United States inadequate, he went with his wife and children to Europe in 1851. The next five years were spent at Dresden, Brussels, and The Hague in investigation of the archives, which resulted in 1856 in the publication of The Rise of the Dutch Republic, which became very popular. It speedily passed through many editions and was translated into Dutch, French, German, and Russian. In 1860, Motley published the first two volumes of its continuation, The United Netherlands. This work was on a larger scale and embodied the results of a still greater amount of original research. It was brought down to the truce of 1609 by two additional volumes, published in 1867.

The reception of Motley's work in The Netherlands itself was not wholly favorable, especially as Motley described the Dutch struggle for independence in a flattering light, which caused some to argue he was biased against their opponents. Although historians like the orthodox Protestant Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (whom Motley extensively quotes in his work) viewed him very favorably, the eminent liberal Dutch historian Robert Fruin (who was inspired by Motley to do some of his own best work, and who had reported already in 1856 in the Westminster Review Motley's edition on the Rise of the Dutch Republic) was critical of Motley's tendency to make up "facts" if they made for a good story. Though he admired Motley's gifts as an author, and stated that he continued to hold the work as a whole in high regard, he stressed it still required "addition and correction".[5]

The humanist historian Johannes van Vloten was very critical, and responded to Fruin in the introduction to his Nederlands opstand tegen Spanje 1575-1577 (1860): "...about the proper appreciation of Motley's work (...) I agree less with your too favorable judgement. (...) We cannot build on Motley['s foundation]; for that — apart from the little he copied from Groen's Archives and Gachard's Correspondences — for that his views are generally too obsolete."[6] Although appreciating his efforts to make Dutch history known among an English-speaking audience, Van Vloten argues that Motley's lack of knowledge of the Dutch language prevented him from sharing the latest insights of the Dutch historiographers, and made him vulnerable to bias in favor of Protestants and against Catholics.

Civil War

In 1861, just after outbreak of the American Civil War, Motley wrote two letters to The Times defending the Federal position, and these letters, afterwards reprinted as a pamphlet entitled Causes of the Civil War in America,[7] made a favourable impression on President Lincoln. At this point the English census of 1861 confirms that he was living with his wife and two daughters at 31 Hertford Street, in the parish of St George's, Hanover Square, London and describing himself as an 'author - history'.[8]

Partly owing to this essay, Motley was appointed United States minister to the Austrian Empire in 1861, a position which he filled with distinction, working with other American diplomats such as John Bigelow and Charles Francis Adams to help prevent European intervention on the side of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. He resigned this position in 1867.[9] Two years later, he was sent to represent his country as Ambassador to the United Kingdom, but in November 1870 he was recalled by President Grant. Motley had angered Grant when he completely disregarded Secretary of State Hamilton Fish's carefully drafted orders regarding settlement of the Alabama Claims.[10] After a short visit to the Netherlands, Motley again went to live in England, where the Life and Death of John Barneveld, Advocate of Holland: with a View of the Primary Causes and Movements of the Thirty Years War appeared in two volumes in 1874.[11]

The Brabo Fountain (Dutch: Brabofontein) is located in the Grote Markt (Main Square) of Antwerp, in front of the Town Hall of the city. The ceremonial inauguration of the sculpture took place in 1887. Jef Lambeaux realized the set of the bronze fountain.The reason is the legend of the name of the city, in which it is said that the giant Druon Antigoon cut off a hand to all the ship captains who moored in the area and refused to pay toll, then throwing it to the Scheldt. The captain of the Roman army Brabo cut off the giant's hand imitating what he had done. The fountain reflects the moment when the Brabo throws the giant's hand into the river. According to this legend, the etymology of the name of the city Antwerp is a composition of the Dutch words "(h)ant" (hand) and "werpen" (launch).However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, that Antwerp's name derives from "anda" (at) and "werpum" (wharf) to give an 't werf (on the wharf, in the same meaning as the current English wharf). Aan 't werp (at the warp) is also possible. This "warp" (thrown ground) is a man-made hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide, whereupon a construction could be built that would remain dry. Another word for werp is pol (dyke) hence polders (the dry land behind a dyke, that was no longer flooded by the tide).

Herbert Harvey Rowen (22 October 1916 in Brooklyn, New York – 31 March 1999 in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania), was a noted American historian of Early Modern Europe and "arguably the most important English-speaking historian of the Dutch Republic since John Lothrop Motley."

James Hain Friswell (8 May 1825 – 12 March 1878) was an English essayist and novelist.

He was born at Newport, Shropshire, son of William Friswell, of 93 Wimpole Street, London, attorney-at-law, and educated at Apsley School, near Woburn, Bedfordshire. He was intended for the legal profession, which he did not enter, but for some years was obliged to follow a business which was uncongenial to his tastes. He early showed a preference for literature, and contributed in 1852 to the Puppet Show, conducted by Angus B. Reach and Albert Smith. Much of his life was devoted to the defence of Christianity.

He was a frequent contributor to Chambers's Journal, The Leader, The Spectator, the London Review, the Saturday Review, and the Pictorial World. His first successful works were Houses with the Fronts off, brought out in 1854, and Twelve inside and one out. Edited from the Papers of Mr. Limbertongue, which appeared in the following year. In January 1858 he founded the Friday Knights, a social society, the name of which was changed to the Urban Club on 15 Nov. 1858. One of his most useful publications was Familiar Words, a Collection of Quotations, a work of much labour, which he produced in 1864. In the same year he wrote his best-known work, The Gentle Life, which became very popular, and ran to upwards of twenty editions, including an edition dedicated by desire to the queen. His own periodical, The Censor, a Weekly Review of Satire, Politics, Literature, and Arts, enjoyed but a short life, only running from 23 May to 7 Nov. 1868.

He was the projector and editor of the Bayard Series, a Collection of Pleasure Books of Literature, published by Sampson Low & Co., and he also edited the Gentle Life Series, the latter series consisting chiefly of reprints of his own writings. In 1867 he was a contributor to the Evening Star under the signature of Jaques. While on a visit to Richard Brinsley Sheridan at Frampton Court, Dorsetshire, in December 1869, whither he had been invited to meet John Lothrop Motley, author of the Rise of the Dutch Republic, he ruptured a blood-vessel. He was henceforth a confirmed invalid, but continued to work till within a few hours of his death.

In 1870 he produced Modern Men of Letters honestly criticised. Mr. Sala, whose life was very severely commented on in this work, brought an action for defamation of character against Hodder & Stoughton, the publishers of the book, and obtained 500 pounds damages. In the advancement of the working classes Friswell took a great interest, delivering lectures, giving readings, and forming schools for their instruction. He also laboured earnestly to reform cheap literature for boys, and his efforts were successful in repressing the circulation of some of the most notorious of the penny publications. The majority of his essays attained great popularity; but his novels did not possess the elements of enduring life.

He died at his residence, Fair Home, Bexley Heath, Kent, on 12 March 1878.

The Joyous Entry of 1356 (Dutch: Blijde Intrede, French: Joyeuse Entrée) is the charter of liberties granted to the burghers of the Duchy of Brabant by the newly-ascended Duchess Joanna and her husband Duke Wenceslaus. The document is dated 3 January 1356, (NS) and it is seen as the equivalent of Magna Carta for the Low Countries.

Mitchell Campbell King (born June 1815 in Charleston, South Carolina; died 1901) was a planter and physician in the Carolinas.

Mitchell Campbell King was the son of teacher, lawyer and Judge Mitchel King (Kingo) (b. 8 June 1783 in Crail, Fife, Scotland; d. 12 November 1862 in Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina) and his first wife Susanna Campbell (b. June 24, 1791 in Charleston, South Carolina; d. September 12, 1828 in Charleston). The elder King headed to South Carolina in 1810 and both married on 23 February 1811 in Charleston. They had seven children.

Mitchell C. King was the second-oldest; and with him began the family tradition in using his mother's maiden name Campbell in remembrance of the family's Scottish heritage. He studied medicine at the Charleston Medical College in South Carolina and at Göttingen University in Germany. In Göttingen he was friends with Amory Coffin (1813–1884) from Coffin Point Plantation and John Lothrop Motley. The three of them became friends with the later German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck there in 1832. Both Bismarck and King joined Corps Hannovera Göttingen—a German Student Corps committed to academic fencing—as fellows. Mitchell C. King finished his medical education with an M.D. from Charleston Medical College and settled on one of the family's farms in South Carolina and Georgia.

In the summer time the King family lived in the mountains of Flat Rock in the western part of North Carolina. Later in his life he concentrated on practicing as a physician there in Henderson County. He maintained a lively correspondence with Bismarck until 1875. Bismarck's letters to him are preserved in the U.S. Library of Congress, while some of King's letters are kept by the Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung in Friedrichsruh near Hamburg (Germany), which is a commemorative German Government Foundation in memory of the Chancellor of the German Empire (similar to the Presidential libraries in the United States).

Mitchell C. King married Elizabeth Laura Middleton (b. 27 April 1820 in Charleston; d. 15 February 1838) in Charleston. They had eleven children. King was buried in Magnolia Cemetery (Charleston, South Carolina).

The Saturday Club, established in 1855, was an informal monthly gathering in Boston, Massachusetts, of writers, scientists, philosophers, historians, and other notable thinkers of the mid-Nineteenth Century.

The Siege of Grave, also known as the Capture of Grave of 1586, took place from mid-February – 7 June 1586 at Grave, Duchy of Brabant, Low Countries (present-day the Netherlands), between the Spanish army led by Governor-General Don Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, and the Dutch-States and English forces under Baron Peter van Hemart, Governor of Grave, during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604).In early spring of 1586, the Count Peter Ernst of Mansfeld, by order of Alexander Farnese, laid siege to the town of Grave. After little more than a month, and the impossibility of the English and Dutch forces for relieving the city, Grave surrendered to the Spaniards on 7 June. The capture of the strategically important town of Grave by Parma, and the impotence of the English commander Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to relieve the town, in a time where England had raised hopes to the Dutch rebels thanks to the Treaty of Nonsuch, was a complete military and political success for the Spanish authorities, and a severe blow for the Protestant cause, provoking the start of the disagreements of the States-General of the Netherlands with the Earl of Leicester.A few days later, the Spanish army, commanded by the Prince of Parma, laid siege to Venlo, garrisoned and supported by Dutch and English troops led by Maarten Schenck and Sir Roger Williams. On 28 June 1586 the garrison was forced to capitulation to the Spaniards.

The Siege of Huy of 1595, also known as the Assault of Huy, was a Spanish victory that took place between 7 and 20 March 1595, at Huy, Archbishopric of Liège, Low Countries, as part of the Eighty Years' War, the French Wars of Religion, and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604).

The Siege of Venlo of 1586, also known as the Capture of Venlo, was a Spanish victory that took place on June 28, 1586, at the city of Venlo, in the southeastern of Low Countries, near the German border (present-day Province of Limburg, the Netherlands), between the Spanish forces commanded by Governor-General Don Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma (Spanish: Alejandro Farnesio), and the Dutch garrison of Venlo, supported by relief troops under Maarten Schenck van Nydeggen and Sir Roger Williams, during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). After two failed attempts to relieve the city, the siege ended on June 28, 1586, with the capitulation and the withdrawal of the Dutch garrison.According to John Lothrop Motley, during the siege, there was an important event when the troops of Maarten Schenck and Roger Williams arrived near Venlo to relief the Dutch garrison. At that night (about 170 Dutch and English soldiers led by Schenck and Williams) they passed through enemy lines with stealth, killed several Spanish soldiers, and even reached the door of the Prince of Parma's tent, where they killed Parma's secretary and his personal guard. Then, with the Spanish camp alerted, Schenck's troops fled to Wachtendonk, being pursued by 2,000 Spanish soldiers. In this pursuit, near the half of Maarten Schenck's troops were killed or captured.After the capture of Venlo, in mid-July 1586, the Spanish army led by Don Alexander, surrounded the city of Neuss (or Nuys), an important Protestant stronghold in the Electorate of Cologne, as part of Spanish support to Ernest of Bavaria in the Cologne War. The city refused to capitulate, and consequently Neuss was virtually destroyed by Parma's army. The whole garrison commanded by Hermann Friedrich Cloedt was killed or captured, including himself.On May 21, 1597, Maurice of Nassau tried to capture Venlo by surprise, but the operation was a failure due to the great defense of the Spanish garrison, supported by the population of the city. In 1606 another attempt led by Frederick Henry resulted in another failure.

The Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours was signed on 29 September 1580 between the Dutch Staten Generaal (with the exception of Zeeland and Holland) and François, Duke of Anjou (supported by William the Silent). Based on the terms of the treaty, François assumed the title of "Protector of the Liberty of the Netherlands" and became sovereign of the Dutch Republic. The accord was ratified at Bordeaux on 23 January 1581.

When François attempted to take Antwerp in the French Fury on 17 January 1583, the citizens massacred his army. He withdrew from the Low Countries in June and died of malaria the following year.

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